Target fortification gives preterm babies a better start in life

Come meet the Miris Team at booth #2 at jENS for a demo of the Miris Human Milk Analyzer™ that makes individualized nutrition possible.

The nutritional content of human milk changes over time and differs between mothers. Fortifying blindly, without knowing the milk’s macronutrient content, more often than not misses the nutritional target, leaving the infant at risk of over- or undernutrition.

Miris Human Milk Analyzer™ gives the energy, fat, carbohydrate and protein content in human milk within minutes using a small sample volume. This enables clinicians to adapt fortification to the actual macronutrient content of the milk.

5 reasons to use target fortification

There are large variations in the macronutrient content of human milk used in neonatal care. Mother to mother variation, stage of lactation, and methods of storage and treatment can all affect composition. Target fortification is used to tailor human milk for the individual preterm infant’s nutritional needs by analysing the milk prior to fortification. By knowing the macronutrient composition of human milk it becomes easy to identify if fortification is needed.

Ensure quality of growth by optimizing the protein:energy ratio

Target fortification allows for the monitoring of protein intake and the protein:energy ratio in the range of nutritional recommendations. This ensures the right growth for each preterm baby.

Prevent protein deficiency in infants

The concentration of protein in human milk declines significantly after birth. The ESPGHAN 2010 guidelines indicate that most preterm babies have a protein deficit that is linked to their weight and composition of their feed. Measuring the protein concentration makes it possible to individually target fortify the milk with adequate amount required for each baby for optimal development.

Ensure better clinical outcome

Research indicate that malnutrition leads to a higher prevalence of heart disease in adulthood and has a negative effect om cognitive development. Using target fortification will limit the risk for malnutrition, in the short term associated with poor growth and in the long term with complications such as visual impairment, developmental disorder or cardiovascular disease, or overnutrition resulting in increased body fat, larger waist circumference or impaired glucose homeostasis.

Individualise nutrition to meet each babies needs

By using the approach of target fortification, each baby will receive individualised nutrition significantly reducing the variability in nutritional intakes compared to standard fortification and give each baby the best possible start in life.

Through years of experience Miris has developed a portfolio of instruments and consumables that are tailored to ensure that the complete workflow related to analysis of breast milk is optimised to provide the most accurate and reproducible results. Our solution includes Miris Human Milk Analyzer for analysis, Miris Ultrasonic Processor and Miris Heater for optimising sample preparation, a range of consumables such as a cleaning solution, control solutions, and tubes, syringes and bottles. Separate service packages are also available.

Make sure to come by our booth at the jENS Congress for a demo of our intrument!

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Miris Interviews

Enjoy our series of interviews together with leading experts within neonatal care, nutrition for preterm babies, target fortification and milk banking around the world. New episodes are published regularly.

Enjoy our series of interviews together with leading experts within neonatal care, nutrition for preterm babies, target fortification and milk banking around the world. New episodes are published regularly.

Company short

Miris develops, produces, markets and sells the Miris HMA – Human Milk Analyzer (HMA). The HMA is being used to analyse breast milk for individual nutrition of preterm babies. We sell HMA together with the Miris Ultrasonic Processor for sample preparation in more than 25 countries world wide.